Edustructional Technology

Whether or not you embrace or endorse the flipped classroom concept, many of the ideas in the model apply to a variety of classrooms.  Presenting information to students outside of class is beneficial.  Teachers need ways to package content for students to preview/review outside of class and discuss/practice inside of class.  Luckily, many new education startups have focused on this need.  One of these startups is Blendspace. If you are unfamiliar with Blendspace , it is a web app that specializes in packaged lesson creation.  There are many of these type of web apps available, but I have found Blendspace to be one of the most friendly to use and to have the lowest learning curve. The Platform Platform Home After signing up, you will be directed to the main platform.  From the screenshot, you can see that the interface is very minimal.  Along the top is account information and notifications.  Along the left side, you have Lessons, Classes, and Gal...

One of the major pitfalls of students (and teachers) using technology as a tool to produce is disregard for copyright.  This failure to respect copyright is the by-product of the freedom of information on the internet. For instance, if a teacher asks a student to make a PowerPoint, the images for the PowerPoint are usually copy-pasted from a Google Image search.  Students (and many teachers) do not question who owns the image and treat it as if it were in the public domain.  So, how can we stop this practice? Creative Commons The first step is to teach students about copyright.  While most teachers are familiar with copyright law, students are woefully ignorant.  Many falsely assume that anything available on the internet is free for use. To address this lack of knowledge, consider taking students to the Creative Commons website.  Creative Commons is the leading online organization providing licenses for content posted to the internet.  At the site, yo...

As an ITS for a school district, I have the opportunity to deliver classes to teachers on how to incorporate technology into their lessons.  It is one of the best parts of my job.  But, recently, I have noticed some improvements that can be made for both training and lesson planning. A Suggestion for Professional Development As a technology trainer, I have noticed that it is much too easy to focus professional development on just the technology tools.  Teachers like to learn a simple and easy to use technology.  Also, it easier to create a session based around introducing or showcasing a technology.  But, focusing on just the tools themselves is putting the cart before the horse.  Technology should never be driving a lesson.  Instead, technology should supplement the lesson.  Deliverers of professional learning need to focus more on helping teachers incorporate technology and less on introducing them to new technologies.  In a later post, I w...

One skill that I have noticed receiving renewed interest in education is the process of annotating.  When most educators think about annotation, they have nightmares of dusty college textbooks bleeding yellow highlighter.  But, annotating is a much more focused and useful process than that when it is done well.  Today, I am going to introduce a tool for annotating images.  Tomorrow, I will review a tool for annotating text. Educators tend to think about text instead of image when analyzing persuasion, purpose, and audience.  But, images are much more persuasive on an instinctual level than text.  Students need to learn to evaluate the messages in images that their TVs, smartphones, high school hallways, etc. present them on a daily basis.  So, I wanted to introduce you to a tool that focuses only on annotating images.   Marqueed Marqueed is a web app created to allow graphic design professionals a way to collaborate electronically.  But, it a...

As a former English teacher, I was once guilty of this egregious sin, the research notecard.  Once upon a time, students were assigned a research paper (THE research paper).  Typically, this paper was assigned in Junior or Senior English.  The student would be asked to collect an arbitrary number of sources (10 or more usually), find quotes from the sources, write the quotes on an index card, and write the MLA (or APA) citation of the source on the card.  Then, the student would write a paper that somehow worked in these quotes.  This assignment was horrible in so many ways.  It had no real-world applicability, and it is no wonder that students dreaded writing the paper. If you believe that the research notecard is dead or that it just applies to English classes, you would be sorely mistaken.  There are millions of teachers across the country who still assign the research paper and the writing of research notecards.  If you are guilty of this (as ...

I read a lot of blogs and articles about technology and education.  Unfortunately, the majority of these sites focus on integrating technology in upper grade levels.  There are very few sites that provide information about integrating technology in the lower grades, especially Kindergarten or pre-K. Ironically, in my experience, the teachers who are most excited about technology and most willing to experiment with it are elementary teachers.  Typically, middle and high school teachers are reluctant to give up control or allow a student-centered classroom that works best with technology.  Elementary teachers are much more adaptable. So, for today's post, I am focusing on a classroom response system that can work all the way down to the pre-K level. InfuseLearning Since discovering InfuseLearning 2 years ago, I have become a huge fan of the platform.  InfuseLearning is a web-based response platform that works on any modern web-connected device (Android, iOS, Mac, ...

This post was inspired by a conversation that I had with a high school science teacher.  Before becoming an Instructional Technology Specialist, I was an English teacher.  But, I always had a love of science.  In fact, my major in college for 2 years was Microbiology!  Because of my love for science, I am always looking for ways to integrate technology in that classroom. If you happen to be in a BYOT district, there are many easily accessible ways to provide slow motion video to students.  If your district is not BYOT, you will need to provide cameras capable of slow motion or devices (such as iPads) with cameras. Below are some suggested apps that you can use for slow motion video (these are not endorsements nor am I compensated by these entities): Note:  On this blog, I will always focus on free tools since I believe that cost should never be a barrier for student learning. 1.  (iOS) Ubersense   Ubersense is a free tool that allows students to f...

As the only Instructional Technology Specialist in a large rural district, I struggle to find ways to reach out and provide professional development to all of my teachers and staff.  With 14 schools, it is impossible for me to visit each one.  If I spent one day at each school, I would still only be there 2 days per month! This year, I have decided to investigate ways to provide personal professional development virtually.  I have always provided asynchronous instruction, but I know from experience that some of the most effective learning comes when someone is there to guide learning and answer questions. Like many districts, mine uses Google Apps for Education (GAFE).  Part of the package of tools in GAFE is Google Hangouts.  Hangouts started out very simple, like many of Google's properties.  It was an instant messaging client that competed with AIM and Yahoo Messenger.  As it developed, Hangouts became a much more complex and useful tool. Hangouts n...